Win The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker

**The giveaway has ended. Thanks for participating!**

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Miss Percy Parker is as pale as a ghost, and she should know: her best friend while growing up in a convent was the ghost of a long-deceased gentleman. Percy isn’t a child any longer, though, and her strangely beautiful appearance combined with a gift for visions and speaking to ghosts is about to catapult her into the adventure of a lifetime.

I picked up The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker on a whim one Monday afternoon at my local bookstore. The glowing text on the cover caught my attention, and the blurb on the back added to the intrigue. By late Tuesday night, I’d finished the book and had to get online and look up the author to see what else she’d written and find out if there were more books about Miss Percy. Author Leanna Renee Heiber’s website told me that this was her debut novel and, hurrah!, the first in the Strangely Beautiful series.

Beautifully written with elegant, lyrical passages that delight my English Lit major soul, Ms. Heiber’s debut combines a love of mythology, Gothic Victorian novels, paranormal romance, and science fiction in one novel. I couldn’t put it down, and everyone I’ve passed my copy to has stayed up nights to finish it. We highly recommend The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker for True Blood fans during the hiatus; just don’t blame us when you get addicted to yet another series! We had the opportunity to ask Ms. Heiber a few questions about the novel to share with you, and we’ll be giving away three signed copies of the book below.

True-Blood.net visitors can also purchase the book online at Barnes & Noble for at a special rate of $4.89 until the end of October by clicking here.

Five Questions with Leanna Renee Heiber

True-Blood.net: Can you sum up The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker in 10 words or less?
Leanna Renee Heiber: Ghostly, Gothic Victorian Fantasy with tender passion and epic myth.

Leanna Renee Hieber

TBN: It’s clear from the novel that ancient mythology is a passion of yours. What prompted that passion?
LRH: Playing Pandora in a grade-school play sort of started that love-affair. I made her box of evils with cellophane and fishing wire so when I lifted the box, the evils would seemingly levitate out. We’d been studying Greek Mythology that whole grade-school year, and I found myself most interested not in the big flashy Gods, but in stories like Persephone, Pandora, Iris and the Rainbow, Cupid and Psyche, in all the monsters, the Underworld and in the epic quests. I was far more interested in the Underworld than in Olympus. Even then I had an extremely clear vision of what the Underworld was in my mind: wet, dark, grey stone filled with grey-scale wraiths, a compelling and intriguing place yet terrifying in the depth of its shadow. That vision serves now as inspiration in the Strangely Beautiful series. I should be clear, however, that I take great liberties with my own version of events and only take a small portion of the Mythological canon into my tales.

TBN: We love the retelling of the myth in Miss Percy, updated for Victorian times. How did you get the idea for this series?
LRH: I’ve loved the 19th century since I can remember, an odd obsession to have as a kid, but the Victorian Era has been such a muse to me that I’ve never questioned it. I started my first novel when I was 12 (also a Gothic novel and also set in 1888) so this setting hasn’t let me go for the greater part of my life. The Victorians were very interested in classical themes as well as spiritualism, so the pairing of the late 19th Century, ghosts and myth seemed very natural to me.

When Miss Percy slipped into my mind about 9 years ago, she couldn’t have had worse timing. I was a performance intern for the Cincinnati Shakespeare Festival, working very long hours on several plays at once. But I knew the moment I dreamed her up that my life would never be the same. And it wasn’t. She was so compelling to me, sweet and timid yet passionate, with untapped inner power- looking just like a ghost and yet she wasn’t one- that I had to find out everything about her. She appeared to me like the visions I grant her, slipping into Professor Rychman’s finely appointed office, dressed in Victorian garb and speaking of ghosts. Her heroic counterpart, Professor Alexi Rychman, is all my literary love affairs wrapped into one hero. Dark, intense and brooding, yet fiercely loyal and secretly aching to be loved. When I wondered further about Miss Percy’s interaction with ghosts in addition to her ghostly pallor, the answer was a Mythological one. Percy is, after all, just her nickname. Mythological forces will become more prominent as the series progresses, as well as Fantasy conventions amidst my beloved Victorian backdrop. I’m a cross-genre girl, and this is a cross-genre book.

As for the influences surrounding me when she became my muse – I’d recently become obsessed with Harry Potter, was re-watching all my favourite Jane Austen movies, had discovered a new love for graphic novels by Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore, and rediscovered my old love for 19th Century Gothic novels. And Shakespeare was in my mind 24/7. Throw in a few re-runs of The X-Files and a healthy appetite for a good ghost story. And from the confluence of these forces out stepped something Strangely Beautiful.

TBN: It sounds like you have a lot of literary interests. What kind of books do you read and who are your favorite authors?
LRH: I read across all the genres I adore, so that means Fantasy, Fantasy Romance, Paranormal, Graphic Novels, Suspense, Mystery, Horror and, of course, the 19th Century Gothic novels that have so heavily influenced me. It’s absolutely impossible for me to pick a favourite so forgive the list. Tolkien, J.K. Rowling, Jane Austen, King, Dickens, Stoker, Poe, Hugo, Gaiman, Elizabeth Peters, Anne Perry, Sherrilyn Kenyon, C.L. Wilson (the list goes on and on)… And bless you, True Blood, for turning me on to the exceedingly talented Charlaine Harris, who had been on my To Be Read pile forever and I needed a nudge.

TBN: We knew you were a kindred spirit! Who is your favorite True Blood character and why?
LRH: Well, all the characters in this world are so interesting. But my vote goes to Sookie because she’s my favourite type of heroine for so many reasons. She’s got a huge heart, she’s endearing, she’s unique in her environment and surrounded by all sorts of danger, she has incredible men to help her, and incredible powers of her own that she tries to hone, navigate and use to her own advantage and in the service of those she loves. If Sookie were in Victorian England, I’d like to think her and Miss Percy would have been good friends.

Win A Signed Copy!

In conjunction with Ms. Heiber and Dorchester Publishing, we’re giving away three (3) signed copies of The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker! Here’s how to enter:

• Leave a comment below telling us your favorite mythological being from any form of ancient mythology (Greek, Roman, Native American, Asian, etc.).
• Be sure to include a valid email address so we can contact you if you’re a winner.
• Comments must be posted by 11:59PM PT on Thursday, October 15, 2009 to be eligible.
• Three (3) winners will be chosen at random from all eligible entries and notified via email.

Good luck and be sure to check in next Friday for our next recommendation and giveaway!